McKinney smiled in relief and turned to shout at Odin. “Odin! This way!”
Odin emptied his HK’s clip at the door, blasting apart several more of the artificial birds, but they blasted several more holes in the door as well. He turned and gave Evans an irritated look before diving into the breach on McKinney’s heels. “Why the hell didn’t you say something?”
“Because I knew you’d force me to leave before I was ready.” Evans stopped in the corridor opening. There were already lone bot-birds fluttering around the server room. Evans pulled a round olive-drab canister from a bracket on the wall and pulled a metal pin from it.
McKinney shouted, “What the hell are you doing? Let’s get out of here!”
“Gotta clean up, or I’m going to have some legal issues later on. . . .” He tossed the now smoking canister into the server room, and a blinding white glow began to expand, followed by a wave of broiling heat. Slam. The secret door shut behind them, Evans raced ahead, leading the way. The blinding light showed through a previously unseen gap at the base of the secret door. A furnacelike roar came to their ears.
They raced down the narrow secret corridor, single file, until they reached another hatchway. Evans turned to them and held up a finger for silence.
He whispered, “We hang a left at the laundry room, and that’s the maid’s door. There’s a fire stairwell across the hall.”
Odin nodded. “Pablo Escobar . . .”
“I was keeping my options open, dammit.”
McKinney and Odin nodded.
Evans pushed through and proceeded left. They were close on his heels. McKinney cast a glance at the place and realized this guy really did have a hell of condo. There was no swarm here, and in a moment they reached the service entrance. He unbolted it and ducked his head out. A quick wave, and they headed across and down the building corridor to the fire exit. The moment Evans hit the push bar, the fire alarm sounded. They ran down the stairwell, the fire-rated door slamming behind them.
Odin shouted, “There’ll be fire and police here soon.”
Evans nodded. “Good thing. Some asshole started a fire back there.” He rounded the next stair flight with the others close on his heels. “You really fucked me this time, Odin! What the hell am I going to do now?”
“Help us stop these things.”
“Oh, goddammit. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“You’ve got no choice now. Whoever is behind this has access to intelligence and surveillance systems. You and I both know what those systems are capable of. They’ll find you no matter where you go.”
“Goddammit!” Evans cast a sharp look back at Odin but kept running downstairs. “I don’t appreciate being rewarded for being loyal by having a hive of robot hornets sent to kill me.”
“Give me a name, Mort.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll give you more than a name. I’ll give you a whole live person. . . .”
CHAPTER 26
The Puppet Master
Reston, Virginia, was a prosperous town—although it wasn’t really a town. It was officially a “census-designated place” with “government-like municipal services” provided by a nonprofit association. The Dulles Toll Road ran straight through Reston’s center and was lined with brand- new ten- and twenty-story office towers bearing clever logos that screamed high tech and whispered defense. There were German sedans in the parking lots. Scores of upscale eateries along with the usual midscale chain fried-everything theme restaurants for the junior engineers. There were plenty of trees and parks. Planned development was the norm here.
There were American flags too, of course, fluttering on vehicle fenders, corporate campuses, and public areas just as they had after 9/11. But there was a sense of purpose here as well; “stopping the evildoers” was what they did in the defense corridor. Half these companies hadn’t existed before 2001. Now the military couldn’t find its soldiers without them. National security was the town’s main industry. And business was booming.
In college if anyone had told Henry Clarke he would be doing top-secret work, he would have laughed in their face. He was going to be the next social media wunderkind. In a way he was—except that he could never tell anyone. Now here he was, putting in another late night managing cyber battalions in far-flung time zones from a suburban tech defense park.
It was past one in the morning, and as he clicked across the quiet building lobby from the parking elevators, the RFID tag in his badge identified him to the armed security people at the front desk before he arrived. He didn’t recognize this crew, but then, security people were always rotating. And the security system told the guards everything they needed to know about him.